"What light through yonder window breaks?" William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

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A Lyons in Winter: A Box Set by Pamela Sherwood 
An opportunity to become reacquainted with Sherwood's larger than life 'Lyon's Pride' family was to good to miss. These 'holiday themed' novellas featuring Harold Lyons, the Duke of Whitborough,  Helene de Sevigny-Lyons, his Duchess and and their various offsprings, are filled with the towering personalities. A chance to reread some of their stories and explore new (to me) novellas--a  pleasure!
Madeline Lyon's tale is charming, as is Lord Gervase and Margaret Bellemy's (née Carlisle) untimely romance.
All that frisson, jealousies and untamed energy displayed within the  family is both  riveting and exhausting. What light can indeed break upon the causes for such a dysfunctional family?
And yet light does cast its penetrating beam on many inhabiting the pages of this Box Set.
I was awed by Sherwood's use of Shakespearian themes, reworked into the various Lyon episodes. The avid quoting of the various lines from the Bard shows Sherwood's deep love and grasp of his works and her related understanding of the process of acting.
My favorite contribution this time around, which I hadn't read, is "Ephiphany". A  secondary tale to that of the family. Featuring Lady Bellamy's maid Tilda James, and Lord Gervase's valet Simon Farnsworth, it's a gem.
Using Christmas and winter as an organizing focus for this set of stories, the collection brings together various members of this distinctive, oft times tragic, and always contentious titled (and so very entitled) Victorian family.

 A NetGalley ARC

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